Final Fantasy VII - One-Winged Angel
This was played at my video game music concert in Paris, 05/05/12. While commenting, please keep in mind that I had to play an hour and a half of live music!
I have a strange history with this piece. When I first listened to it (do you guys remember that the FF7 Piano Collections came out after the ones for FF8 and FF9 ?), I really didn't like the arrangement. It sounded really slow, sluggish and boring, and not as dramatic as what I'd expect One-Winged Angel to be. Sure, it sounded cleaner than, for example, the Fantasy Reborn version, but it was lacking a lot. So I decided not to play it!
Fast-forward to wayyy later, when Kyle Landry uploads his take of One-Winged Angel to Youtube. With not too many changes to the arrangement, he makes it sound actually good! So I decided that I was going to play at my concert. A few months later, I start practicing it, and start really really liking it a few weeks before the concert. Then all of a sudden, I figure I should listen to the original recording to see what it sounds like... and guess what, I think "This sucks!!". The problem with the original recording is that it's way too freaking slow, and this makes it impossible for it to capture the demonic-ness of the piece. The tempo I found just by myself was way higher than that, and since I actually liked it, I kept it of course :D
tl;dr version: I like the piece, but not the official recording
By the way, I play the wrong scale at the end! Sorry about that, I need to read my sheet music more thoroughly :3